Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Early bird

It's not even 8:00 a.m. but I've been up for many hours; it feels like lunchtime. Though I haven't checked, I'd be willing to bet that the moon turned close to the moment I woke up. Oh that moon! But it's all over now.

Sometimes waking is like swimming up to the surface from the bottom of a deep ocean. At other times I wake up fully, suddenly, and without explanation, like this morning.

If I have a big day of work ahead I often try to soothe myself back to sleep. I'll play words with friends on the iphone for a little while, or scan the offerings on facebook. I did a little of that this morning but soon figured out there was no way I was going to get back to sleep. I was finished with prayer and meditation, and had had a cup of coffee, before 6:00 a.m.

Early morning is something I love when I wake up to it. Sunrise is so cheerful.

Back in the dawn of my adulthood I struggled desperately to be cool which, in my mind, included staying up as late as I could. Even though I always wanted to be in bed by ten, I saw many a sunrise after staying up all night. These early mornings were not happy experiences for me, nope. Even when I was twenty-one, eating oysters (which I hate, btw, but I thought were signs of coolness), drinking tiny cups of espresso that, in Kansas City in the early 1970s, was nothing to write home about, yes even then I was not a cool, groovy night owl. Seeing the dawn after staying up all night is an awful feeling for me. It means I will miss most of the day ahead. I know that much of the remorse I used to feel, seeing dawn after staying up all night, had to do with the detox involved in hangovers. Just as significant is the fact that I love a good night's sleep - at night, should say.

At fifty-nine I feel very secure with how not cool I truly am. It's not cool to wake early, to go to bed early, but that's how I roll. Oh well. I never touch oysters anymore and the espresso I drink these days is sublime, but I never drink it after noon, nope. After my birthday meltdown, I seem to have settled nicely into 59, into being exactly who I am right here and right now. Thank goodness!

My favorite time of day. I have always been an early riser and just before the sun is perfect to me. I like to be outside with it, watching the world coming alive. I feel full of it all.Really like your 2nd paragraph!